YOU MAKE THE CALL: Which state is run by bigger jackasses, FL or AZ??
Fri, 04/17/2015 - 8:47pm
Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced Thursday that his administration will file a lawsuit against the federal government for threatening to withhold more than $1 billion in funding for hospitals if the state fails to expand Medicaid.
“It is appalling that President Obama would cut off federal health care dollars to Florida in an effort to force our state further into Obamacare,” Scott said, citing a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that said the federal government couldn’t put a “gun to the head” of states to force them to expand Medicaid under the health care law.
The Obama administration quickly accused Scott of misconstruing that court decision because the state is not being forced to do anything. And White House spokesman Josh Earnest blasted the governor for putting politics above people.
Hmmm...so the federal government is offering Florida a bunch of money to take care of poor sick/injured people, and the GOP leadership in Florida refuses to take it for absolutely no reason other than ScaryBlackKenyanMuslimSocialist, so the government is going to take away the other money that they're giving Florida to take care of poor sick/injured people until they agree to take all of it, and now the Florida GOP is going to sue the government for not giving them Pile of Money A unless they also take Pile of Money B. Got it.
As the WH spokesman put it:
“It’s difficult to explain how somebody would think that their political situation and their political interest is somehow more important than the livelihoods of 800,000 people,” Earnest said.
Meeeeeeanwhile, a few thousand miles away in Arizona...
Arizona has passed a bizarre new law in which the state effectively promises that if the Supreme Court destroys its health exchange, it won't build a new one, no matter how badly Arizonans are hurting.
Arizona is among the 34 states that did not build a health insurance marketplace, instead defaulting to the federally run Healthcare.gov. A pending Supreme Court case,King v. Burwell, argues that these federal exchanges don't have the legal authority to distribute Obamacare subsidies.
If the justices rule against Obamacare, they will be halting financial help in states that use federal exchanges places — like Arizona. The most recent figures estimate that approximately 205,000 Arizonans are receiving coverage through the marketplace. Of those, 76 percent are receiving subsidies to help cover the cost of their premiums. An adverse ruling would likely lead the state's exchange to collapse, as healthy, young Arizonans who could only afford insurance because of the subsidies pull out and the exchange itself enters into a death spiral.
Hmmmm...so the federal government wants to continue giving money to middle/lower-income Arizonans to help take care of them when they're sick/injured, and the GOP leadership in Arizona doesn't want them to keep doing so for no other reason than ScaryBlackKenyanMuslimSocialist, so they passed a law declaring that they're refusing to do so if the Supreme Court leaves the choice in their hands, even though they'd have to actively agree to keep taking the money (by setting up a state exchange via legislative action) in order for the money to keep flowing anyway.
As reporter Sarah Kliff put it:
On some level, this all a bit of a charade meant to symbolize how opposed the governor and legislature are to Obamacare. To build a state exchange, Arizona would have to pass a law doing so — and that law could simply include the language necessary to repeal this one.
Hmmmm...Well, it's a tough call, folks, but I'm gonna give the nod to Florida for being the bigger jackasses here. They're screwing with the lives of four times as many people (800K vs. 200K in AZ), and the people they're screwing are in worse shape to begin with income-wise (and therefore, likely health-wise).
Don't worry though, Arizona; I'm sure your leadership will make up for it by doing something else even more petty/cruel in the near future.
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